In full swing: assessment of trade in orang-utans and ... - WWF UK

This report deals exclusively with the trade in gibbons and orang-utans on the islands of Java and Bali. All but one of
the species included in this assessment do not occur naturally on Java and Bali. The lone exception is the Javan Gibbon,
a species confined to the forests of western Java. The assessment deals with all species of gibbon and both species of
orang-utan, irrespective of where they occur naturally, but is restricted to those individuals that are traded on, kept on,
or transported over Java and/or Bali. In terms of Indonesia’s wildlife trade dynamics, Java, and to a lesser extent Bali,
can be seen as the ‘import’ or consumer regions, whereas Sumatra and Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of the island of
Borneo) are the ‘export’ or producer regions. Obtaining a complete picture of trade in gibbons and orang-utans requires
data from both import and export regions. However, since the dynamics of trade differ considerably between the two,
as do the amount and quality of data that can be collected, this report focuses exclusively on Java and Bali.
The species of interest
Of the 13 species of gibbon that are distributed in Southeast
Asia, seven are present within Indonesia, as are both species
of orang-utan (Table 1). Both in terms of number of species
and size of their populations worldwide, Indonesia ranks
first, and as such, the country has a large responsibility for
the conservation of gibbons and orang-utans.
With respect to gibbons, no records of any species other
than those that occur naturally in Indonesia were
encountered in the process of data compilation, and indeed,
none of them are present in Indonesian zoos. For brevity,
this report, therefore, only provides information on the
seven species of gibbon that occur in Indonesia and that are
more or less regularly encountered in bird markets 1 or in
Bird market, Indonesia
zoos. Taxonomy and nomenclature of primates follows
Groves (2001); when referring to gibbons, this includes the
Siamang, unless the particular analysis mentions the Siamang separately in the same sentence, in which case the Siamang
is excluded.
Credit: Chris R. Shepherd/TRAFFIC Southeast Asia
The gibbons are collectively known as the lesser or smaller ape. They split from the other apes between 12-20 million
years ago. It is the most species-rich group of apes with some 13 extant species currently recognized. All live in
Southeast Asia, and many have restricted ranges on (parts of) islands. The northernmost part of their present
distribution is in southern China and Hainan, but even in historic times, their distribution range extended as far north as
the Yellow River (Geissmann, 1995).
The following seven species occur in Indonesia:
Javan Gibbon Hylobates moloch: Endemic to the western part of Java, it occurs in the last fragments of lowland and
hill forest. MacKinnon (1987) estimated that some 98% of the habitat of the Javan Gibbon has been destroyed, much
of it in the second half of the 19 th and the first half of the 20 th century. Populations are severely scattered and there are
1 In most of the larger cities on Java and Bali, but also in any of the smaller ones, a large range of animals are traded at what is commonly known as bird markets (pasar
burung) or wildlife markets (pasar satwa). At some of these bird markets, the vast majority of animals traded are indeed birds, but some of them also have relatively large
quantities of other animal groups on offer. Although the term “bird market” does not perhaps adequately describe the fact that not just birds are traded, as it is widely used
in Indonesian, in this report the term is retained.
IN FULL SWING:ASSESSMENT OF TRADE IN ORANGUTANS AND GIBBONS ON JAVA AND BALI,INDONESIA 4